re the dead in goal thing, people moaned about this for years, so they changed it about 3 seasons ago, ball had to go over the line and touch the floor or the ad boards or a camera, something physical for it be deemed dead, people moaned about that and they changed it back after 12 months.

The flop is becoming a big bugbear of mine as well. On Friday (and before anyone pipes up: I'm not saying that only Wigan do it or that it had any bearing on the result) there were a few occasions where a player would drop onto the tackle a good two seconds after it had been completed (Tautai is one that springs to mind). It's so obvious that it can't have been missed, so it seems the referees are basically not counting it as an offence anymore. It should be stamped out as soon as possible, as it's just a way of slowing down your opponenet's play the ball without having earned the right to do so.

In the NRL whilst the PTB may be cleaner you see a lot of tackles where two make the tackle and hold the attacking player up. A third comes in to 'complete' the tackle but in reality what they're doing is ensuring the tackled player hits the deck. It can actually cause problems if a third defender doesn't come in quick enough - at least once a game you see a forward continuing to make big yards after contact because the first two tacklers are in completely the wrong position to actually bring them down.

The 7 tackle restart hasn't prevented very long kicks dead - more the ones from close to halfway. We seem to be seeing more passing on the last tackle rather than kicks ATM because even if you lose the ball close the opposition line its a 6 tackle restart close to the line rather than a 7 tackle restart 20 yards out.

One rule I'd like to see trialled is for nobody in the scrum to be allowed to be involved at all in the first tackle - in fact I'd force them to stay within a few metres of the scrum. The scrum is solely a restart nowadays, and keeping forwards away from the first play might encourage a bit more adventure.

I tend to think that a lot of the problems with the entertainment quality in RL at present are down to giving coaches too much input into rule changes. They will always go for changes which increase their ability to control a game - if that's at the expense of entertainment they don't care. We need to start thinking about radical rule changes which take into account the ridiculous fitness levels of today's players.

yup, i've said this one for years, if its packed down correctly then it gives the backs an opportunity to go against each other, i hate seeing a prop at first receiver from a scrum.

Wigan's Crosby was not packing down correctly, he was doing it a few times in the derby match, Thaler told him to put his head into the scrum on a couple of occasions he broke away too early and managed to join the tackle third man in. Yes, I would also stop some of the backs coming into the scrum to put forwards into the defensive line.